[Content Warning]: This episode contains references to the sexual and physical abuse discussed in Part One, brief descriptions of a dangerous winter escape, and Elishaba’s description of suicidal thoughts during a difficult period of years after leaving. It also includes later discussion of divorce and a serious cancer diagnosis.

When we left Elishaba Doerksen at the end of Part One, she had just made the hardest decision of her life: to run.

In Part Two, she picks up the story; a harrowing escape across thirty-below wilderness, a police report that finally ended her father’s control over the family, and the long, unglamorous work of healing that followed. Elishaba talks openly about the years it took to unlearn what she’d been taught, a marriage that echoed some of the same patterns of control, becoming a mother and learning what love actually felt like, a cancer diagnosis that reordered her priorities, and the day she finally stood at her father’s grave and said the words "I forgive you."

This is the second half of a story that doesn’t wrap up neatly — because real healing rarely does. It’s also, in Elishaba’s own words, full of hope.

Elishaba is the author of Out of the Wilderness and now speaks around the world as an advocate for survivors of abuse. If you haven’t heard Part One yet, we’d recommend starting there.

Where To Find Elishaba:
Out of the Wilderness: Escaping My Father's Prison and My Journey to Forgiveness – On Amazon
Insta: @elishabadoerksen

If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or suicidal ideation, please access the resources below:

National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call/Text 988
National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN) : 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
National Alliance for Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264

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[Content Warning]: Discussions and descriptions of a firsthand account of childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, animal cruelty, and religious manipulation within a controlling family system.

For years, the world knew Elishaba Doerksen’s father only as "Papa Pilgrim", the patriarch who led his family of fifteen children deep into the Alaska wilderness, cut off from roads, neighbors, and anyone who might ask questions. What the world didn’t know was what was happening inside that isolation.

In Part One of this two-part conversation, Elishaba sits down with Jan Broberg to share, in her own words, what it was like to grow up as the oldest of fifteen siblings under her father’s total control, the religious manipulation that kept the family bound to him, the abuse she endured for years, and the slow, careful process of recognizing, as an adult, that none of it was ever her fault.

This is not an easy listen, but it is an honest one. Elishaba speaks with remarkable clarity about how abuse takes root, how faith can be twisted into a weapon, and how even inside the worst circumstances, small moments of truth can plant the seed that eventually grows into freedom.

Part One ends at the turning point — the moment Elishaba decided she could not stay another day. Part Two picks up with the escape itself and the long road that followed.

Elishaba is the author of Out of the Wilderness, and today she speaks around the world as an advocate for survivors of abuse.

Where To Find Elishaba:
Out of the Wilderness: Escaping My Father's Prison and My Journey to Forgiveness – Buy It On Amazon
Insta: @elishabadoerksen

If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or suicidal ideation, please access the resources below:

National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call/Text 988
National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN) : 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
National Alliance for Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264

🎧 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE
🍎 Apple Podcasts
🎵 Spotify
▶️ YouTube

❣️ JAN BROBERG FOUNDATION
🌐 JanBrobergFoundation.org
🫂 Survivor Circle (free community)
⏳ T.I.M.E. Program
🔎 SPOT6
📖 The Jan Broberg Story (book)
🗞️ Newsletter

📲 CONNECT
📷 Instagram
🎶 TikTok
✍️ Share Your Story

💌 Fan Mail

Support the show

[Content Warning]: Discussions of childhood sexual abuse, domestic abuse, suicidal ideation

Leanne Sheargold spent 25 years as a teacher before a stroke at 28 left her relearning how to walk, write, and dress herself. Decades later, on an ordinary evening, when her husband went through her phone, cracks opened in a marriage she hadn't yet let herself see clearly. In this episode of Trauma Interrupted, Leanne tells Jan Broberg how her body carried a childhood secret for 52 years, what happened the night she finally left her marriage, and how she rebuilt her life as a quantum healing practitioner who now helps other women release trauma stored in their own bodies.

They talk about the slow, hard-to-name shape of financial and emotional control, what it means to become a “chain breaker” in your own family line, and why Leanne calls herself lucky that her memories waited until she was ready to hold them. She also shares the book that helped her finally understand her body's symptoms, why she chose a gentler healing modality after months of intensive EMDR, and one simple grounding practice you can try today.

This is a conversation about the wound, the work, and the way forward; about naming what happened, setting boundaries with people who won't, and choosing, morning by morning, to come home to your own body.

Where To Find Leanne:

Her Website: PureGoldHolisticWellbeing.com
Leanne’s Insta: @leanne_sheargold
Pure Gold Holistic and Wellbeing Insta: @puregoldholisticwellbeing
Leanne’s Facebook: @Leanne.Sheargold
Pure Gold Holistic and Wellbeing Facebook: @PureGoldHolisticWellbeing

Mentioned Resources:
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or suicidal ideation, please access the resources below:

National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call/Text 988
National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN) : 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
National Alliance for Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264

🎧 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE
🍎 Apple Podcasts
🎵 Spotify
▶️ YouTube

❣️ JAN BROBERG FOUNDATION
🌐 JanBrobergFoundation.org
🫂 Survivor Circle (free community)
⏳ T.I.M.E. Program
🔎 SPOT6
📖 The Jan Broberg Story (book)
🗞️ Newsletter

📲 CONNECT
📷 Instagram
🎶 TikTok
✍️ Share Your Story

💌 Fan Mail

Support the show